Satoru Iwata has been very open about the Wii U and its struggles, and he certainly hasn’t shied away from taking responsibility. Iwata recently said that Nintendo is to blame for poor Wii U sales, and added that Nintendo needs third party publishers for the Wii U to succeed.
In a new interview, Iwata does mention the need for third party publishers to get on board with Wii U. But the first priority, he said, was to to “regain momentum of the Wii U”. In an interview with IGN, Iwata said:
“Our focus is, first of all, to regain the momentum of the Wii U towards the end of this year, and then we’ll try to establish successful third-party Wii U software titles”
Iwata added that he and Nintendo understand the importance of third party games on the Wii U, and added this little nugget:
“I believe in the importance of third-party support for Nintendo platforms. I’m very willing to change the current situation.”
Being “very willing to change the current situation” is hopefully an indication that Nintendo is now actually listening to the market, the gamers, and third party publishers.
Hopefully this means that Nintendo has a plan on how to sell more Wii U units — the biggest reason there are (almost) no third party games on the Wii U is that it’s not selling well. And it’s not selling well because Nintendo isn’t promoting the console at all.
Come this Fall, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will bring even more competition in the marketplace. However, the Wii U will be by far the cheapest of the three next gen consoles, and Nintendo has a shot of winning over some new gamers if they play their cards right.
